The study of Hawaiian coins, tokens, medals, paper money, and scrip.

About

The Hawaiiana Numismatist  blog shares my enthusiasm about Hawaiiana numismatics. For those not familiar with the term Hawaiiana numismatics, it is the study and/or collecting of coins, tokens, medals, paper money, scrip, and objects that have a relationship with Hawaii. Most items that are collected have a design or text related to Hawaii. The Hawaiian relationship may be in a form of its landscape; its cultures, its people, its industry, its events, its language, its customs, its celebrities, etc…

Hawaiiana numismatics is very diverse. As some collectors call it an esoteric area. Others call it back of the book collecting. As I can attest to it, diversity is the spice of life. How diverse? Hawaiiana numismatics has several cross-over areas that touch other collecting specialties: SCD, SC50C, Alaska, WWII, Kingdom of Hawaii coins,US commemorative half dollars, Liberty Dollars (i.e. NORFED), saloon tokens, railroad tokens, plantation tokens, amusement tokens, bakery tokens, commercial tokens, dairy tokens, military tokens, school tokens, transportation tokens, elongated tokens, encased tokens, commemorative medals, ingot, royal medals, etc..

Updated 12/15/2014 —————————–Start

Garry Moore has created a language translation listing (English/Hawaiian) of commonly used words and phrases on Hawaiian numismatics. Thank you Garry for the outstanding contribution!

Online price guides available for certain coins with “X” number assignment (by Krause Publications) as defined in the books: Unusual World Coins and World Gold Coins. These websites may require a login account and/or subscription.

The Medcalf & Russell (M&R) catalog number prefix “2” denotes its source from the second edition and was published in 1991.

As of March 15, 2014. In cases were a new discovery or discrepancy has been identified in existing reference books, a unique “The Hawaiiana Numismatist” (THN) catalog number is to be generated that uses a subset designation such as:

THN-XXX-MR91-YYYY

MR91 =Medcalf & Russell 1991 book

YYYY=MR91 identification

If you are interested in contributing in speading the knowledge about the Hawaii coins, medals, tokens, etc… contact me at darryl@gwu.edu

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21 thoughts on “About”

I have two coins, each are1/10 oz silver, and one features King Kalakaua on the obverse and the other one feature Queen Liliuokalani on the obverse. Both are minted by the Royal Hawaiian Mint and both are dated 1994. The problem is the I cannot find any information on them in either the Hawaiian Money Standard Catalog (2nd Edition) by Donald Medcalf and Ronald Russell and Unusual World Coins by George S. Cuhaj. Can you shed any light on these two coins?

One of the issues with the Royal Hawaiian Mint (RHM) dies (was pointed out by Medcalf & Russel) is its reuse by subsequent owners/lessee of the RHM minting equipment. Unfortunately, they have been using the original dies matted with newer dies. The coins you have may be dated 1994, but it could have been struck at a later date.

If you could provide an image of the reverse (or describe it) I can help further in determining the coins. The hallmarks of the minter and design feature on the reverse is what I need to see or described. I hope this helps.

From what you have described and checking the RHM database, you may have an undocumented issue that was not widely distributed.

On the reverse, it is highly likely that you will only see the letters RHM (no circle, date, nor triangle).

From what I have seen to cut cost, RHM would intermix dies of the past with newer dies. As an example, 1994 obverse (with Kalakaua, Liliuokalani, or Kaiulani) would be the new die and was used first to strike the 17mm gold issue with a matching gold design reverse. After the gold coins was struck, the 1994 17mm obverse die would be mated with the “Royal Hawaiian Silver 1/10 oz” reverse die from the past. This allowed die usage flexibility, thus saving on production costs.

As an undocumented issue that was not widely distributed, it may be a low mintage issue. I have seen the 1/10 oz silver 1994 Liliuokalani coin used in jewelry before. Anything used on jewelry will exhibit some sort of damage. As a pristine encapsulated specimens, your coins would be highly desirable by the Hawaiiana collector.

Your coins will not be listed in Medcalf & Russell since it was published in 1991. As for the Unusual World Coins book, it may take time to get the coins listed.

Hi Darryl,
You are right on both accounts. The letters RHM appear on both coins just below the Coat of Arms and there is evidence on the Liliuokalani coin had been used for jewelry. However, the Kalakaua coin is in pristine condition. Thank you for your help and insight.

Do you mind if I send you some more questions from time to time. I am a haole from San Antonio, Texas who got hooked on collecting Hawaiian coins and tokens after I met my wife who is from Haleiwa. I have been collecting Hawaiian coins and tokens on and off for about 15 years now. My emphasis is coins from the Royal Hawaiian Mint, Hawaiian designed NORFED coins and paper currency, and Hawaiian school lunch tokens.

As you can imagine, it is next to impossible to found Hawaiian coins, token, or information here deep in the heart of Texas. That is why I was so excited to find your blog site. Thanks again for your insight.

I purchased both of these coins this morning but cannot find any listing for them. Can you shed any light of them please? They were listed as 2007 Kamehameha IKI Hawaii Dala 10 mm .999 Silver and 2007 Kalakaua I King of Hawaii IKI Dala.10 mm .999 Silver.

Those coins are Royal Hawaiian Mint issued, but not under the watch of Bernard von NotHaus (BVN) since his personal hallmarks are missing (triangle with a circle and a letter b inside and next to the RHM). The design was most likely created by Bud Gregory (BG) team (he leased the RHM in 2007).

There is a RHM database that has not been kept up, therefore mintage information is unknown. However, the coins are dated 2007 and was struck in the RHM lease transition period to BG. I suspect the mintage maybe low.

As for the term IKI being used, it needs clarification. All previous IKis were struck in gold. Yes, the IKIs are 10mm and weight is 1 gram, but it’s gold. Then again, BG ran the mint in 2007 and does not have to follow what BVN did in the past.

Darryl, Thank you very much for your help. You are correct, the RHM’s database is spotty at best concerning mintage total, particularly for anything minted after 2000. Plus the fact that they are reusing the dies and mixing and matching the various obverses and reverses is just down right maddening.Thanks again fir everything.

I am a bit confused concerning the Hawaii Liberty coins. I currently have six different Hawaiian-themed Liberty dalas, but only three of which are found in Cuhaj’s UNUSUAL WORLD COINS (6th Edition). The three that I can identify in the catalog are X # 26, 27, and 28. However, there is no mention whatsoever of the $5 Discovers Hawaii coin, nor the $10 Warrior of Hawaii and $20 King Kamehameha coins. And yet, there are six different $20 dala coins listed, of which I have never been able to find any photos at all for five of those coins. Of course the Royal Hawaiian Mint’s database was of no help on this subject. Is there another source of information you can point to concerning the Liberty coins? Or are you able to shed some light on this matter?

General information about the “Hawaii Dalas series” can be found in specialized Norfed Liberty Dollar sites/blogs. Eventually, the information will flow into the main stream books. It may take several years. Eventually once they get “cataloged”. Demand will increase and the supply will dry up.

This is a good start. I believe this is only part of the documented series (for identification only, i.e. no mintages):

This is concerning your blog titled Doing my Princess Kaiulani homework … A New Variety Discovery. I have the 1994 Princess Victoria Akahi Dala, but am missing the Princess Dala. However, I think I have a third design of this coin. The date and all of the obverse design elements match those of the Akahi Dala exactly. The reverse legend reads TEN HAWAII SILVER DOLLARS. It also has the very same coat of arms as the Akahi Dala, under which reads $10 DALA. The RHM hallmark is incorporated into the coat of arms design.

What you describe is X# MB153. Struck in 1996. BVN reused dies. In the case of x# MB153 he create a new reverse ($10 base) and matched them with dies already made from the previous years (Kamehameha, Kalakaua, Liluokalani, Kaiulani, Discoverer, and Sovereign). See X# MB150 – X# MB155. I believe this was his start in upping the base value of the RHM coins (from $1 to $10). However, he did strike a gold 100 Dalas coin in 1993.

Hi Martin! Sorry for the delay. Email issues with my website. One of the interesting things about the Royal Hawaiian Mint (also known as The Hawaiian Mint) issues are its low mintage for some of its bronze versions. Please send me images of the obverse and reverse as I can identify the medal more accurately.

2) I never did seel the attached RHM card. I believe the card was printed ahead of time and its was a production goal. Many of the cards to not correspond with the Wafs in Gold Boots (aka RHM database) population.
3) I’m not sure were the Unusual World Coins catalog obtained its mintage number of 50.
4) Catalog value is $35 US

I recently fell recipient of a 1996 Royal Hawaiian Gold & Solver Proof Set, No. 146 of 250. I could not seem to find anything about this inheritance piece on the internet. Can you enlighten me as to 1) what the issue price was and 2) its current value? I need this information for inheritance tax purposes.